The invention relates to a method for providing delivery confirmations of message deliveries made in a telephone network, comprising the steps of:
a subscriber A providing a message addressed to a subscriber B, which message is temporarily stored in a storage device located in the network,
making an attempt for delivering the stored message to subscriber B, and
after said delivery attempts, delivering subscriber A a confirmation of the result of the message delivery. In principle, a message may be any type of message, such as a voice, data or telefax message. A voice message will be disclosed below, however, as a typical example of a message to be delivered.
In telephone networks, centralized call answering services have been implemented in which a voice mail unit including several xe2x80x9cmailboxesxe2x80x9d has been connected to an exchange. When a subscriber of the telephone network uses a centralized call answering service, to a subscriber line is assigned one of the mailboxes of the voice mail unit. When there is an incoming call to the subscriber line, the home exchange of the subscriber will route the call to the voice mail unit, to the mailbox assigned to the subscriber. This rerouting may be programmed to take place either every time, only when the line is busy or when there is no answer from the subscriber line, or on some other corresponding condition. When a rerouted call is connected to the voice mail unit, the unit will play the announcement spoken by the subscriber of the service or the operator, and gives the calling party an opportunity to leave a voice message in the mailbox of the subscriber of the service. The subscriber may listen to the voice messages addressed to him by calling to a directory number that has been reserved for the mailbox of his own voice mail unit. A system of this kind is attended by the drawback that the subscriber will not know without making a call whether the exchange has rerouted any calls to the voice mail unit, or whether any messages have been dictated.
An improvement on the above is a xe2x80x9cMessage Waiting Indicationxe2x80x9d MWI service. Thus, when the exchange has routed a call addressed to the subscriber line to the voice mail unit, it will activate for the subscriber, upon the subscriber lifting the handset, e.g. a spoken message xe2x80x9cvoice messages are waitingxe2x80x9d or a dialling tone that differs from the normal, instead of the normal dialling tone.
An even more advanced service is provided in such prior art systems in which an attempt is made for delivering (at a later instant) a voice message left by subscriber A to a desired subscriber B that was busy or did not reply during the call attempt made by subscriber A. A service of this kind is termed as a Message Delivery Service or Call Delivery Service. This kind of service is activated when the exchange providing the service receives an information on that subscriber B is busy or subscriber B has not replied during a specific time. Thereafter, instead of the xe2x80x9cbusyxe2x80x9d tone, an announcement is switched to subscriber A from the announcement unit integrated to the exchange, the announcement telling that the subscriber can leave a message to subscriber B. In addition, the subscriber A may be provided with additional information on the billing tariff used. If subscriber A wishes to use the service, he dials a requested key (e.g. #). The call is thus routed to a service node, which instructs the subscriber in leaving a message. Upon leaving a message, subscriber A may give additional instructions on the delivery, that is, when the message should be delivered and/or how many attempts should be made. When the message has been left, the server attempts to deliver the message to subscriber B according to the instructions given by subscriber A. This kind of system is disclosed e.g. in European Patent Application 385,670.
Systems of this kind, however, are attended by the drawback that the user of the service (subscriber A) can only indirectly obtain a confirmation of the receipt of his message (e.g. after the receiving party has contacted him). In most cases, however, it would be necessary to receive a confirmation almost immediately after she delivery of the message, since spoken messages become outdated in a short time almost without exception.
An attempt has been made for relieving this problem e.g. in the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,972,461. This publication discloses a system in which a confirmation of a completed message delivery or an unsuccessful delivery attempt may be provided to a calling party in association with the message delivery service of the speech/data messages, if the subscriber so desires. When using the system, the calling party may give the telephone number to which he wants the confirmation to be delivered. Simultaneously, he may also give, upon leaving a message, the date and the time and the duration, in which case the system will start the attempts for delivering the confirmation at the moment determined by the date and the time, making re-attempts, if need be, until said duration time expires.
The system of the kind disclosed above has the drawback that, first of all, a successful confirmation of the delivery is still not sure. The confirmation service makes a limited number of attempts (to provide the information on completed/unsuccessful delivery), i.e. the principle is the same as in delivery of the actual voice message). The service may thus have to make N attempts to deliver the message with no success, however, and thereafter another N attempts, for delivering the information on the unsuccessful attempt, again with no success. Thereafter, the information on a completed/unsuccessful delivery of the message is stored in the confirmation service for a predetermined time (e.g. 24 hours), during which the calling party may make inquiries about it).
The approach described above may also result in the confirmation service causing a lot of extra traffic in the network, which is such traffic that cannot be charged. The use of the system is also complicated, since a lot of information must be provided by the pushbutton dial to the system.
The object of the present invention is thus to achieve such a novel method for providing delivery confirmations of message deliveries made in a telephone network enabling eliminating the above drawbacks.
The object of the invention is achieved with a solution of the invention, which is characterized by maintaining in the network subscriber-specific information on whether a subscriber has such a message delivery service available that allows delivery of subscriber-specific messages, whereby upon delivering a confirmation, it is possible to route a confirmation addressed to subscriber A to said message delivery service on the basis of said information, if need be.
The idea of the invention is to maintain in the network a subscriber-specific service profile or confirmation profile by means of which a confirmation transmitted from the message delivery service node to the subscriber may be transferred (if need be) to a message delivery service already at the subscriber""s disposal. The message delivery service herein refers to any prior art service in which subscriber-specific messages can be left. Message delivery services of this kind include e.g. voice mail/call answering service or a short message service of a cellular network. The idea of the invention is thus to utilize other services available to the subscriber by delivering the confirmation data to such a service that already exists, at least in a case where the confirmation cannot be switched directly to the subscriber line.
In accordance with the invention, the user is provided with the delivery confirmation service only when it is sure that the confirmation is received at one attempt. The network utilizing the method is also able to provide the confirmation without the subscriber separately requesting it. Thus, in the subscriber-specific confirmation service, providing the delivery confirmation can be set as a default value, which may be changed (cancelled/disabled) by the subscriber message-specifically. Thus, it is simpler than heretofore for the subscriber to obtain a confirmation.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, the delivery confirmations are routed via the home exchange of the subscriber, whereby it is possible to first make an attempt to deliver the confirmation directly to the subscriber""s own terminal equipment.